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Operation: Indiscriminate Friendship

Hi, my name is Daniel. I'm a 21 year old student at the Australian National University. I write, I game, I am occasionally a jerk, but I love the world, love my life and love all the messed up folks. And I want to give something back.

My plan is to hold a Delayed Derpy Day. For those unfamiliar, the principles of Derpy Day are:

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-Muffins. At least one must be consumed by days end, lest Pinkie's tail twitch for you.
-The Muffin shaped cake is fine even if you are not Orthodox Derpy.
-An article must be moved from one area of the house and placed in the wrong one for the entire Hoofiday.
-Letters must be hoof written and delivered to those you love within delivery distance. E-mails have now been recognized for those too far for this observance.
At least try to deliver one RL letter.
The Letters are to be about why you love them or are thankful they are your friend. (Bonus writing a loving friendship letter to an enemy.)
-Anytime a picture of you is taken or you see yourself in a mirror, you must give the traditional Derpy Occular salute. 9_6

My plan has a number of pillars:

THE PILLAR OF MUFFINS: I have $50 I'm willing to spend on muffins. I plan to call up some bakeries and work out a good deal for 50 or so mini-muffins. I also need to build a large sign that reads FREE MUFFINS. Any advice anyone has about building large signs would be appreciated.

THE PILLAR OF MUSIC: Before giving a random their free muffin, I will require that they sing, read, shout, or dramatically dance along to this song. I will record, with video and audio, each attempt. They will only be given the following lyrics:
She's an Evil Enchantress
And She Does Evil Dances
And If You Look Deep In Her Eyes,
She Will Put You In Trances
Then What Will She Do?
She'll Mix Up An Evil Brew
And She'll Gobble You Up
In A Big Tasty Stew

So...

Watch Out.

After acquiring as much raw footage as I can, I will need to find someone with decent audio-visual editing skills to hack it into something passable. The resulting video(s) will be put on YouTube.

THE PILLAR OF LETTERS:

And finally, I plan to distribute random, uplifting and inspiring letters to strangers. These should be the kind of messages that make you feel warm and appreciated. I want to use quotes from famous people, from the television show Friendship Is Magic, and generalized positive messages. I also want to convey messages from random people on the internet.

If you have any quotes that inspire you, anything you'd like to say to a stranger, anything that makes your day a bit brighter or would make someone else's day a bit brighter, please tell me. I intend to write around 100 of these things, by hand, and need a lot of ideas.

So please, if you have anything you want to tell a stranger, anything you want to say to make the world a brighter place, any memorable quotes please post them here. I need as many as I can get.

Re: Operation: Indiscriminate Friendship

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Life
it's ever so strange
it's so full of change
think that you've worked it out
then bang
right out of the blue
somethin' happens to you
to throw you off course and then you
breakdown
yeah, you breakdown
well don't you, breakdown
listen to me.

It's just a ride, it's just a ride
no need to run, no need to hide
it'll take you all around
sometimes you're up
sometimes you're down
it's just a ride, it's just a ride
don't be scared
now dry your eyes
it may feel so real inside
but don't forget enjoy the ride.

(Excerpt from Jem's Just a Ride)

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Oh,
Whenever you see there's stuff to clean,
Get off that rump! Don't sit and dream!
Just look around and there is bound
To be somepony to help you!

Whether you're flying or tidying stuff,
Give it your all – it'll be enough!
Don't be down! Reverse that frown!
You have somepony beside you!

(Shamelessly lifted from the Ponyship extraordinaire 'The Party Hasn't Ended')

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Dear Princess Celestia Stranger,

Today I learned that while the magic of friendship is a gift I should treasure with all of my heart, there is always somepony else who needs this gift just as much as me. And so I'm passing it along to you. Even though we might never speak face to face, I am giving you my friendship. I will share your dreams and hopes, and I will wish every night by the moon and the stars that you find the strength to work past any troubles you may have and get everything you desire.

All I ask in return is your promise to share this gift with others. Smile at a stranger. Compliment a coworker on a job well done. Hold a door open or pick up something that was dropped without looking for a thank you. Just this once, "forget" to pick up your change at a restaurant. Something small, anything at all, to remind another that they have reasons to feel good about themselves. If everypony does their part, we can make something amazing happen.

Yours Sincerely,

-Phoebe, Twilight Sparkle, or Other Name As Appropriate
(Me! I wrote this!)

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"What you leave behind is not what is engraved in stone monuments, but what is woven into the lives of others."

And while we're quoting dead Greeks:

"I just really want to die.
She, crying many tears, left me
And said to me:
"Oh, how terribly we have suffered, we two,
Sappho, really I don't want to go away." And I said to her this:
Go and be happy, remembering me,
For you know how we cared for you.
And if you don't I want to remind you
of the lovely things we felt
with many wreathes of violets
and roses and crocuses
and you sat next to me
and threw around your delicate neck
garlands fashioned of many woven flowers
and with much...
...and you anointed yourself with...
...on soft couches...your tender...
fulfilled your longing."

(Sappho fragment, cut and edited slightly to make what we have read easier)

Re: Operation: Indiscriminate Friendship

I personally like "I've sunshine enough to spread", but that's might be hard to find a place for in a letter.

Still, best of luck and I very much approve of this idea.

Thanks

Originally Posted by Strawberries

The Neil Gaiman one in my sig. I've always loved that quote.

Ah, wonderful. Gaiman is a gentleman and a scholar. "You can't take the sky from me" isn't bad either.

Originally Posted by Lord Loss

Dude. DUUUUUUUUDDDE. That is awesome. As for the inspiring messages, crack open some fortune cookies and look there for inspiration. They often seem inspiring to me.

No fortune cookies, but five seasons of Kung Fu should do.

"Nothing dies that is ever something"

Originally Posted by Introbulus

...I fully approve of this idea.

Inspirational quote, eh? Hmm...

That's a great one!

Originally Posted by Irbis

You, Sir, made me like Australia again after two... certain acidic guys pretty much ruined the image of the country for me. I'll help/prepare as much as I can

Now, on to planning stage.

Glad to redeem my country though, technically, we're still part of England.

Planning stage! Current priorities are "Acquire Free Muffins Sign" and "Acquire video camera that works"; may have to go for a rental if I can't find a friend to bum one off.

Originally Posted by PhoeKun

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Life
it's ever so strange
it's so full of change
think that you've worked it out
then bang
right out of the blue
somethin' happens to you
to throw you off course and then you
breakdown
yeah, you breakdown
well don't you, breakdown
listen to me.

It's just a ride, it's just a ride
no need to run, no need to hide
it'll take you all around
sometimes you're up
sometimes you're down
it's just a ride, it's just a ride
don't be scared
now dry your eyes
it may feel so real inside
but don't forget enjoy the ride.

(Excerpt from Jem's Just a Ride)

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Show

Oh,
Whenever you see there's stuff to clean,
Get off that rump! Don't sit and dream!
Just look around and there is bound
To be somepony to help you!

Whether you're flying or tidying stuff,
Give it your all – it'll be enough!
Don't be down! Reverse that frown!
You have somepony beside you!

(Shamelessly lifted from the Ponyship extraordinaire 'The Party Hasn't Ended')

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Show

Dear Princess Celestia Stranger,

Today I learned that while the magic of friendship is a gift I should treasure with all of my heart, there is always somepony else who needs this gift just as much as me. And so I'm passing it along to you. Even though we might never speak face to face, I am giving you my friendship. I will share your dreams and hopes, and I will wish every night by the moon and the stars that you find the strength to work past any troubles you may have and get everything you desire.

All I ask in return is your promise to share this gift with others. Smile at a stranger. Compliment a coworker on a job well done. Hold a door open or pick up something that was dropped without looking for a thank you. Just this once, "forget" to pick up your change at a restaurant. Something small, anything at all, to remind another that they have reasons to feel good about themselves. If everypony does their part, we can make something amazing happen.

Yours Sincerely,

-Phoebe, Twilight Sparkle, or Other Name As Appropriate
(Me! I wrote this!)

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"What you leave behind is not what is engraved in stone monuments, but what is woven into the lives of others."

And while we're quoting dead Greeks:

"I just really want to die.
She, crying many tears, left me
And said to me:
"Oh, how terribly we have suffered, we two,
Sappho, really I don't want to go away." And I said to her this:
Go and be happy, remembering me,
For you know how we cared for you.
And if you don't I want to remind you
of the lovely things we felt
with many wreathes of violets
and roses and crocuses
and you sat next to me
and threw around your delicate neck
garlands fashioned of many woven flowers
and with much...
...and you anointed yourself with...
...on soft couches...your tender...
fulfilled your longing."

(Sappho fragment, cut and edited slightly to make what we have read easier)

Hope it helps.

These are beautiful and exactly what I need. Thank you. Thank you very much.

Originally Posted by Crown of Thorns

Huh. You're on Equestria Daily.

Thanks for all the support everyone! So begins Day One: Organising Media!

EDIT: I also woke up at midnight last night, saying out loud "BUBBLES! I NEED BUBBLES FOR THIS!"

Last edited by Thanqol; 2011-03-12 at 07:22 PM.

There are six sparks in the sky, each with six spheres.
The sphere of the sphere is the sphere of the sphere.

Re: Operation: Indiscriminate Friendship

So I've got at least that long, hm? I'll dig around a little more for more material, and maybe write another Letter to the Princess for you.

In the best of all worlds I'll:
- Get clearance and sort everything out on Tuesday
- Acquire/practice using the camera on Wednesday
- Run the event on Thursday or Friday

It is possible I'll have to delay until next week if things don't go as planned, in which case it'll happen the following Wednesday.

But I'd absolutely love more letters

MEDIA TEST: PHOTOGRAPHY

This is my house. It is a nice house. We own an almost unseemly number of cars

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This is my computer. As you can obviously tell, it is the most macho computer in the history of the universe. I call her Inspired.

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This is my bookcase. I am quite proud of my bookcase. The middle shelf is the cool place to be.

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This is my dog. As dogs go, he is one of them. We call him Ruffy.

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And this is the Box of Friendship. It's about 40% full of random letters by this point - quotes from Ghandi, Sagan, Martin Luther King, and you guys. I'm going to have to watch Friendship Is Magic yet again to properly harvest friendship quotes (woe is me).

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Every empty space in this box is a space you can be filling with friendship.

EDIT: ALSO, I NOW HAVE BUBBLES

Last edited by Thanqol; 2011-03-12 at 09:55 PM.

There are six sparks in the sky, each with six spheres.
The sphere of the sphere is the sphere of the sphere.

the greatest men in history are not the men did the greatest things they're the ones that did all that they could in support of their beliefs. be their deeds big or small in comparison to the deeds of the former their deeds are greater simply because they did them not for fame, nor glory, nor any gain for themselves...but for and idea. a belief. be that belief right or wrong, it takes a brave strong and willed individual to fight that belief in the face of overwhelming opposition.

Anon

if you are going through hell, keep going

Churchill

you gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face; you must do the things you think you cannot do.

Re: Operation: Indiscriminate Friendship

I have a proposal I made just now for the sign:

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In Celebration of Derpy Day
Courtesy of Operation: Indiscriminate Friendship

I would take it to a local printing shop and haveit printed on A1 or even A0 sized poster board and set it on an easel or something like that, but you can't use that image due to its low resolution. Not sure how much that would cost, though. Email or PM me for the print-quality file if you're interested.

In Celebration of Derpy Day
Courtesy of Operation: Indiscriminate Friendship

I would take it to a local printing shop and haveit printed on A1 or even A0 sized poster board and set it on an easel or something like that, but you can't use that image due to its low resolution. Not sure how much that would cost, though. Email or PM me for the print-quality file if you're interested.

Also: Just registered today just so I could post this.

You have saved me from getting a giant hunk of brown cardboard, scrawling FREE MUFFINS on it with a marker and then having to sit in front of it all day. I owe you thanks, genuine thanks.

Welcome to the GiantITP forums!

*

UPDATE 2

Last night I woke up saying aloud "Write what you want to write!" And then spent three hours writing before almost falling asleep at my keyboard. This waking up saying stuff is a recent thing, I assure you.

Today is the greatest and most popular public holiday known to the world: CANBERRA DAY. We celebrate by not doing much and everything is closed. This puts an annoying delay in the plans, so I've got to work on other things. Today the priority is to cover schoolwork, run a tabletop game (Rogue Trader!), and bug as many people as I can into loaning me a camera.

BUT something came up.

A small baby bird was found in my back yard, not flying or doing anything. I've seen this before; it means it flew into a window and got mildly concussed and can't think straight enough to fly. I picked it up and started walking it to the nearby vet so my dog wouldn't get it. Pictures!

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And then, just as I neared the vet, it flew away.

It is impossible to feel bad after rescuing a baby bird. Hope everyone else had a morning as good as mine

There are six sparks in the sky, each with six spheres.
The sphere of the sphere is the sphere of the sphere.

Re: Operation: Indiscriminate Friendship

You might have difficulty trying to send that much video data over the internet. Being that you are a student at a university (much like myself), I would think that the following two conclusions are reasonably likely to be true:

Your computer came pre-loaded with basic video editing software. For Windows, it is Windows Movie Maker; for Mac, it is iMovie. WMM has a bit more flexibility to it but is a bit tricky to figure out at first; iMovie is less versatile but is fairly straightforward and easy to pick up. Just keep in mind how we tech-savvy folk tend to figure out how most software works.

You have a friend or acquaintance locally who already knows a thing or two about video editing (and maybe even have more advanced software!) and wouldn't mind helping you out, or at the very least may be better able to execute the above-linked protocol for computer assistance. You can make a night of it, it can be pretty fun to figure these things out together. It's a great excuse to consume soda, sweets and junkfood. Who knows, if they aren't already a FiM fan, then you could introduce them to it and further spread the brony affliction!

Re: Operation: Indiscriminate Friendship

Originally Posted by Thanqol

Thanks! I have no idea how any of this tech works. Once I get the footage I'll send it on over

waffle911 makes a good point, sending that much video over the internet could be a problem. However, if you divide up the video footage into increments and upload it to YouTube, you can private it so only users with the link can access the video. If I have the link I should be able to get the footage, I have a couple internet tricks up my sleeve.
There are also some sites that you can upload files to, but I'm not sure what's reliable.
Another thing is, I think you can send files over Skype. I don't know if there's a size limit, or if videos are even possible though.

You can contact over Skype using NinjaFanpire, or ninjafanpire@hotmail.com. I only use the hotmail for messenger, so I don't check my E-Mail there. I am usually not logged into Skype unless I have a scheduled chat time though.
You can send files through E-Mail as well, but there is a size limit, so you would probably still have to break up the footage if it's just one long video.

What might work for E-Mail is if you create a zip file, I'm not entirely sure how those work though.
EDIT: http://www.sendspace.com/ is a safe site for uploading files.

Re: Operation: Indiscriminate Friendship

Originally Posted by NinjaPony

snippty

My idea's more fun, if time-consuming >_>
But it does also make collaboration and creative control easier when working in person.

Thanqol, one thing I just thought that you should be aware of is the wishes of the people who would be filmed; I think it would be important to have their consent to have footage of them posted publicly. Perhaps you could have them include their verbal consent preceding their actual recitation of the song, and then cut it out of the final video but keep the originals with their consent to avoid any potential legal trouble in the future. Plus then you won't have to actually keep track of their names and such, and they can remain comfortably anonymous to everyone (except for their faces, of course).

Edit: Idea! Not sure if this was your initial intention, but there are 47 words in the song; with roughly 50 muffins for randoms, you could have the video have a different person for each word and have some leeway for people who don't want to be filmed or something. Then you could also pick whoever is most on-key for each word and have the song stay roughly true to its melody. And you can also have Eurobeat Brony's Super Ponybeat tracks all looping on the boombox (it's surprisingly hard to get sick of them) and then everybody can dance! But, um, whatever you want to do is fine…after all, it is your celebration…[/fluttershy]
Oh, and it's "Then she'll gobble you up…" I just double checked the song.

Re: Operation: Indiscriminate Friendship

Originally Posted by waffle911

My idea's more fun, if time-consuming >_>
But it does also make collaboration and creative control easier when working in person.

Thanqol, one thing I just thought that you should be aware of is the wishes of the people who would be filmed; I think it would be important to have their consent to have footage of them posted publicly. Perhaps you could have them include their verbal consent preceding their actual recitation of the song, and then cut it out of the final video but keep the originals with their consent to avoid any potential legal trouble in the future. Plus then you won't have to actually keep track of their names and such, and they can remain comfortably anonymous to everyone (except for their faces, of course).

Good plan, something that was in the back of my head when plotting this.

Edit: Idea! Not sure if this was your initial intention, but there are 47 words in the song; with roughly 50 muffins for randoms, you could have the video have a different person for each word and have some leeway for people who don't want to be filmed or something. Then you could also pick whoever is most on-key for each word and have the song stay roughly true to its melody. But, um, whatever you want to do is fine…after all, it is your celebration…[/fluttershy]

A great idea, but I'm more inclined to get each of the people to sing the full song and perhaps later work out how to do a one-person-one-word remix.

I do plan to get gummi worms to supplement the muffins; if people are too shy to sing they can get gummi worms instead. No one leaves empty hoofed!

Last edited by Thanqol; 2011-03-14 at 12:40 AM.

There are six sparks in the sky, each with six spheres.
The sphere of the sphere is the sphere of the sphere.